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Beyond the “Sigh of the Oppressed Creature”: ACritical Geographical Enquiry into Christianity'sContributions to the Making of a Peaceable WestMark Boyle aa Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

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Beyond the “Sigh of the Oppressed Creature”: ACritical Geographical Enquiry into Christianity’sContributions to the Making of a Peaceable West

Mark Boyle

Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

At a time when sectarian tension is being viewed as a threat to global peace and religions are being called on topromote ecumenical dialogue and condemn militant fundamentalism, this article offers a critical geographicalenquiry into the role of Christianity in the making of a peaceable West. Christianity’s historical alignment withthe Western project and imbrication in histories of colonialism and imperialism raises questions about its capacityto serve as a progressive force in global affairs today. Placing Christianity under postcolonial scrutiny, this articleargues that Christianity offers a variety of complex, contradictory, and competing approaches to peace buildingthat variously defend the hegemonic ambitions of the West on the one hand and support critical practices thatusurp and decenter the sovereign supremacy assumed by the West on the other. Critical geographical enquirycan offer Christianity a heightened self-understanding of the role of location, space, and place, in the framing,enactment, and impacts of its different colonial and postcolonial visions. Using the case of the Roman CatholicChurch for illustration, the concepts of “milieux of translation,” referring to the social, economic, political, andcultural prisms through which theology becomes refracted into praxes, and “formations of the secular,” referringto the conditions in secular democracies that permit religions prescribed access to the public realm, are advancedas key to any understanding of the situated production and mobilization of Christianity’s strategies for peace.Future dialogue between Christianity and (institutional) geography might usefully begin with an exchange ofideas on how the wider project of historicizing, relativizing, and provincializing the West might best contributeto improved interfaith, intercultural, and intercivilizational dialogue. Key Words: Christianity, postcolonialism,religion, Roman Catholicism, secular politics.

En un momento en el que la tension sectaria se columbra como una amenaza para la paz global y cuandoa las religiones se las convoca para promover el dialogo ecumenico y condenar el fundamentalismo mil-itante, este artıculo presenta una indagacion alrededor del papel de la Cristiandad en la construccionde un Occidente pacıfico. El alineamiento historico de la Cristiandad con el proyecto occidental y lasimbricaciones con historias de colonialismo e imperialismo, generan interrogantes sobre su capacidad paraservir como una fuerza progresista en los problemas globales de la actualidad. Al colocar a la Cristiandadbajo el escrutinio poscolonial, en este artıculo se arguye que la Cristiandad ofrece una variedad de enfoquescomplejos, contradictorios y antagonicos sobre como hacer la paz, que al tiempo que defiende las ambicioneshegemonicas de Occidente por un lado, apoya practicas crıticas que usurpan y cuestionan la supremacıasoberana asumida por Occidente, por el otro. El estudio geografico crıtico puede ofrecer a la Cristiandad unadestacada autocomprension del papel de la localizacion, espacio y lugar, en la enmarcacion, aplicacion e impactos

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(3) 2010, pp. 678–694 C© 2010 by Association of American GeographersInitial submission, October 2008; revised submissions, March and April 2009; final acceptance, April 2009

Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.

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Christianity’s Contributions to the Making of a Peaceable West 679

de sus diferentes visiones coloniales y poscoloniales. Usando el caso de la Iglesia Catolica Romana comoilustracion, los conceptos de “milieu de traduccion,” referido como los prismas sociales, economicos, polıticosy culturales a traves de los cuales la teologıa se refracta en practicas, y de “las formaciones de lo laico,”en referencia a condiciones de democracias laicas que permiten a las religiones acceso prescrito al reinopublico, son mostradas como la clave para cualquier entendimiento de la produccion situada y movilizacionde las estrategias de la Cristiandad para la paz. El dialogo futuro entre Cristiandad y geografıa (institucional)podrıa comenzar provechosamente con un intercambio de ideas sobre como el mas ambicioso proyecto dehistoriar, relativizar y provincializar el Occidente podrıa contribuir mucho a mejorar el dialogo interconfe-sional, intercultural e intercivilizacional. Palabras clave: Cristiandad, poscolonialismo, religion. Catolicismo Romano,polıtica laica.

Acertain wisdom holds that we are now living ina postsecular age when religion is reassertingitself in the public realm. One hallmark of

this age is the significance attributed to religion ininternational relations. The principal global regions,it is purported, sit perilously on the brink of a “clashof civilizations,” at the heart of which is conflictcaused, aggravated, or symbolized by tensions withinand between the prophetic religions of Middle Easternorigin, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the wisdomreligions of Chinese origin, Confucianism and Dao-ism; the mystical religions of Indian origin, Hinduismand Buddhism; and the older ethnic or indigenous re-ligions, which still resonate particularly in Australiaand Africa. Simultaneously dubbed a source of conflictand war and a vehicle for peace and security, it is as-sumed that religion is enjoying a new sense of agency ingeopolitics.

The focus of this article is the role of Christianity asa peace breaker and peace maker in the contemporarygeopolitical theater. Placing the spotlight on Christian-ity serves as a necessary antidote to tendencies withinthe West to ascribe sole culpability for any emerging“clash of civilizations” to Islam and in particular Islamicfundamentalism. There can be no doubt that Islamicextremism has emerged as a potent threat to globalpeace and stability in the past decade, but to focus onlyon militant Islam is to occlude necessary examinationof the roles and responsibilities of other religions, notleast Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. It is crucialto hold to account the leadership of all the principal re-ligions and to scrutinize their respective contributionsto the making of war and peace.

Christianity’s embroilment in international rela-tions takes many direct and indirect forms and in-cludes prayer, lobbying, advocacy, and action aroundthe provision of emergency relief in war zones anddivided societies; ethical consumption and fair trade;corporate social responsibility within transnational

companies; humanitarian aid in areas suffering nat-ural or human disasters; nuclear disarmament; pollu-tion and climate change; forced migration includingthe movement of refugees and sex trafficking; humanrights abuses; HIV and reemerging infectious disease;biotechnology and stem cell research; new technolo-gies of fertility control and engineering; creationism andthe school curriculum; faith-based schooling; the legalstatus of same-sex marriages; fertility control; adoptionpractices; dress codes in public spaces; freedom of speechand worship; and media responsibility.

Any elevation of Christianity within the publicsphere requires a parallel moment of introspection,confession, and contrition. There can be no doubtthat throughout its past, Christianity has made im-portant contributions to cross-cultural and ecumenicaldialogue, the deescalation of intractable and violentconflict, and directly to peace building itself. Althoughthere is a tendency to view much of this work as es-sentially humanitarian and precognitive, motivated byimmediate, practical, applied, and pragmatic concerns,it is Christocentric, Eurocentric, and Westerncentricto regard it as innately virtuous. It is necessary to exca-vate the theological, philosophical, and political basesof Christian initiatives for peace. Christianity has en-joyed a unique proximity to political power and hasbeen implicated in a variety of inglorious histories ofcolonialism and imperialism. Against the backdrop ofa new phase of Western colonialism, imperialism, andneocolonialism, it has a special obligation to reflecton the ways in which it might be serving both as aprogressive and regressive institution in world affairstoday.

On the other hand, although recognizing the po-tential of religion to serve as the “opium of the peo-ple,” mystifying, obfuscating, and veiling the roots ofinequality, oppression, exploitation, and colonialism,Marxism has a much richer tradition of engagementwith religion and recognizes its dual potential. Recently,

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Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek and Christian theolo-gian John Milbank (Zizek and Milbank 2009) have bothmooted the possibility of bringing Hegel and Christ intoa new dialogue but for different reasons and on differ-ent terms. Written in exile in the United States andpublished in three volumes between 1954 and 1959,in fact Bloch’s (1986) The Principle of Hope makes anearlier and equally compelling case for reframing reli-gion as at once a tool for the powerful and a resourcefor revolution. For Bloch, religion was indeed the “sighof the oppressed creature,” as Marx (1843) so famouslyproposed in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,but it was also a rich source of utopian hope and revo-lutionary consciousness. Marxism needed to be alert toregressive uses of religion to legitimate exploitation, hu-man misery, and conflict but could also be more open tobuilding solidarity with religious currents that promotesocial justice; a fairer deal for the marginal, excluded,and poor; and planetary peace.

If the sigh of the oppressed creature is to give wayto the principle of hope, it is imperative that Chris-tianity’s progressive social and political currents assertthemselves over regressive, conservative, and obfusca-tory constituencies. The critical question then is theextent to which Christianity is formulating and evange-lizing progressive social and political agendas, buildingand fortifying purposeful social movements in support ofthe world’s poor and exploited, widening and enrichingpublic debate and democratic politics, and nurturinga stronger sense of global responsibility and care. Or, toput the counterfactual, to what degree is Christianityformulating and evangelizing conservative and regres-sive social and political agendas, building and fortifyingentrenched and elitist interests, narrowing and dimin-ishing public debate and democratic politics, and in-flaming a sense of otherness and superiority?

The case of the Roman Catholic Church is usedto open a discussion on Christianity’s varied, complex,contradictory, and competing ecumenical agendas. Theapproach taken places the Roman Catholic Church un-der postcolonial scrutiny. The Catholic Church is vari-ably confronting its entanglements in colonial historiesand reflecting on the possibilities of, strategies for, andmerits of postcolonializing. A critical geographical en-quiry into Catholicism’s contributions to war and peacemight productively interrogate the importance of thespaces and places from which Catholicism is postcolo-nializing its embroilments with other societies, cultures,and religions. The purpose of such enquiry would be toshed light on the locations from which Catholicism isacting to reassert a resurgent Christian West and the lo-

cations from which it is variously “provincializing” theWest, so as to produce more or less effective strategiesfor peace building.

Firmly rooted as it is within contemporary social,cultural, and political geography, Kong’s manifesto for“new geographies of religion” provides an opportunityto think both critically and geographically about Chris-tianity’s multiple approaches to building global peaceand security (Kong 2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2005a, 2005b,2006, 2007; see also special editions of Social and Cul-tural Geography [Holloway and Vallins 2002], Annals ofthe Association of American Geographers [Proctor 2006],and Geopolitics [Agnew 2006]). This article extendsKong’s call for new geographies of religion and offersthe concepts of “milieux of translation,” referring to thesocial, economic, political, and cultural prisms throughwhich theology becomes refracted into praxes, and “for-mations of the secular,” referring to the conditions insecular democracies that permit religions prescribed ac-cess to the public realm, as key to the development ofgeographies of Christianity’s postcolonialization.

In their search for an appropriate vista throughwhich to apprehend the varied and complex processesof domination, control, resistance, and violence thathave resulted from past and present colonial andimperial projects, geographers, too, have drawn on andcontributed to the emerging field of postcolonial studies(Sidaway 2000; Blunt and McEwan 2002; Nash 2004;McEwan 2008). Motivated by a sense of contritionabout the historical complicity of the discipline ofgeography in the colonization by European powers ofterritories in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, sustainedattention is now being given to the locations fromwhich postcolonial theory and postcolonial geographyitself is being imagined, framed, and enacted (Minca2003; Pollard et al. 2009). This article concludes thatfuture dialogue between Christianity and geographymight productively focus on the risks and rewards thatflow from the pursuit of postcolonial envisioning ofglobal peace and security.

Christianity and Colonization : EvangelicalChristianity in the UnitedStates—Paradigmatic or Exceptional?

Christianity comprises a crowded landscape with aconfusion of beliefs. Originating as a Jewish sect in thefirst century, Christianity’s growth to prominence hasbeen fractured by at least two great schisms, the separa-tion of Roman Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy in

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the eleventh century, and the further splitting of Protes-tantism from Roman Catholicism during the sixteenth-century Reformation. Protestantism, too, exists as acomplex composite of confessions, including the An-glican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Calvinist, Baptist, Pen-tecostalist, Methodist, and Evangelical churches. Withan estimated baptized population of 1.1 billion (Chris-tianity has an estimated 2.2 billion adherents), RomanCatholicism stands as the single largest and most glob-ally expansive denomination.

Given its complex historical formation it would seeminappropriate to make generalizations about Christian-ity’s proximity to political power. Nevertheless, forsome critics, beginning with the fourth-century Con-stantinian conversion of the Roman Empire, embodiedin the Crusades of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenthcenturies, and most clearly demonstrated in Europeancolonization of Africa, Asia, and Latin America fromthe sixteenth century, Christianity’s principal churcheshave been embroiled, albeit in varied and complex ways,in past colonial and imperial projects.

It is certainly true that at least three sets of relation-ships between Christianity and empire can be identi-fied (Weber 1930; Tawney 1938; Said 1978; Livingston1992; Driver 2001):

� Christianity as a precondition for the emergence of Eu-rope: Christianity provided the prepolitical culturaland moral foundations, conditions, and argumentsand energy, efficacy, and organization for the emer-gence of European states, the rise of modern Euro-pean capitalism, and the annexation by Europeanstates of overseas territories and resources.

� Christianity as a source of geopolitical imaginaries thatfuel colonial projects: Through the production ofgeopolitical imaginaries that emphasize hierarchiesof reason, virtue, and truth, Christian discoursesabout the “Orient” formed a critical component of“Orientalism” more generally, defined as a Westernprojection onto and will to govern over the Orient.

� Strategic alliances between Christianity and colonialprojects: Early Christian missions provided knowl-edge, often in maps, which aided military conquestsand colonial planning while Christian missionariesexploited the new opportunities opened up by colo-nization to evangelize.

In the combustible geopolitical climate of themoment, pivoting around a new phase of Westernimperialism and a purported clashing of world civiliza-tions, it is perhaps unsurprising that critics have claimed

that Christianity is buttressing the geopolitical strate-gies of Western advanced capitalist nations and thatthese interventions stand as the latest incarnation inChristianity’s historical intermeshing with empire. Al-though such claims have been directed at many Chris-tian churches, they have been focused principally onthe role of evangelical Christianity on American for-eign policy. Amid rhetoric pronouncing a return to theCrusades and ruminations of Christianity as an “impe-rial religion and religion of the imperialist,” it is im-portant to be alert to the limits of historical compari-son. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile considering criticalvoices, as they help to establish what is at stake in anyconsideration of Christianity’s complicity in Westerngeopolitics.

Developments within global capitalism from themid-1970s have pitted the West, and in particularthe United States, into a new relationship withthe rest of the world. Encapsulated by the debatebetween Niall Ferguson and Robert Kagan at theAmerican Enterprise Institute in 2003, and reflected indisputes surrounding the Project for a New AmericanCentury, there is disagreement within the Americanright as to whether the United States should bedescribed as an empire (Durham 2006). According toAgnew (2005), at the very least emerging internationalrelations announce a new phase in U.S. economic andpolitical hegemony. Harvey (2003), Gregory (2004),and Smith (2005) went further to assert that theserelations are predicated on new modes of colonial andimperial annexation. The trafficking, reembedding,and policing of Western neoliberal ideology in non-Western societies has played a key role in appropriatingeconomies around the world and underwriting a newperiod of transnational “accumulation by dispossession”(Harvey 2005).

Meanwhile, as early as 1980, Daniel Patrick Moyni-han prophesized the rebirth of ethnicity as a forcein world affairs. A spectator of the fragmentation ofthe Soviet Union into a mosaic of virulent ethnicnationalisms, Moynihan (1993) later likened futureworld disorder to “Pandaemonium,” the capital of hellin Milton’s seventeenth-century poem Paradise Lost.This focus on ethnicity was to mutate into a concernwith civilizations, a derivative but distinctive concept.It was Huntington (1996) who was to globalize thespecter of Pandaemonium and bring the geopolitics ofcivilizations into everyday public discourse, assertingthat world peace and security, and in particular theChristian West, is increasingly being threatened bythe clashing of civilizations. Inspired by Flaubert’s

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unfinished Bouvard et Peecuchet, written in 1880 at theheight of the European colonial adventure, Said (1978,113) noted the significance of the maxim that “Europeneeded Asia to regenerate itself.” Reading Huntington,it would almost seem that the West now “needs” aclash of civilizations, and in particular an other inmilitant Islam, to regenerate itself today (Said 2006).

Schama (2008) provided a timely reminder thatChristianity has always been central to American po-litical life but noted that evangelical Christianity hasbeen presented with a new historical opening. The neo-conservative lobby in the United States has played apivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy and pro-moting fears over an impending clash of civilizations,and it is through this lobby that evangelical Chris-tianity has exerted influence. Although often tracedto a clique of “Straussians” who worked their way intohigh office or who were able to influence senior fig-ures within the administration of President George W.Bush, neoconservatism in fact encompasses a widerconstituency including “Evangelical Christians, JewishStraussians, avowedly secular cold warriors who havemade a fetish of the West, conservative feminists, andother family moralists” (Brown 2006, 698). Its pioneersinclude Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, NathanGlazer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and, more recently,Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, and PaulWolfowitz.

Neoconservatism expresses abhorrence toward thealleged moral decadence wrought by liberalism, coun-terculture, and postmodernism since the 1960s. For neo-conservatives, a strong theologically informed state willbe required if the United States is to arrest decliningstandards, dwindling respect for tradition and authority,moral liberalism, the folly of political correctness, mis-placed multiculturalism, and the paralyses of relativism.The West, however, is threatened by outside “deviant”and “rogue” states, too, not least from the “axes of evil”emanating from the Muslim world. The United Stateshas a divine mandate to “civilize” “laggards,” “tyrants,”and “dictators” by imposing liberal democracy, order,freedom, and the market, by force if necessary. Nation-alism and patriotism are fanned by a rekindled interestin natural law and moral order and Christianity is fore-grounded as unashamedly at the heart of public life andpublic policymaking.

The operation of power and authority within theU.S. polity ensures that this is a postsecular society onlyfor religious constituencies that support the interests ofU.S. nationalism and patriotism, U.S. capitalist global-ization, and an offensive U.S. foreign policy. Culturally

and morally conservative, evangelical Christianity fitsthis profile and has therefore enjoyed unequal and priv-ileged access to political power. Moreover, it is difficultto assert that Christian neoconservatives have workedto fortify and enrich the functioning of democracy inthe United States. Evangelical Christianity has not onlybenefited from a secular politics open to its message, butthrough its absolute claims to truth and authority hashelped to constitute a foreclosure of genuine agonic de-bate and impaired the proper functioning of democraticpolitics. Brown (2006) referred to neoliberalism andneoconservatism’s combined dedemocratic tendenciesas constituting an “American nightmare.”

Undoubtedly the role played by evangelical Chris-tianity in public life in the United States in generaland U.S. geopolitical strategy more specifically pro-vides a crucial insight into the ways in which someWestern polities remain radically and unequally openonly to regressive Christian geopolitical agendas thatare consonant with powerful colonial, imperial, andneocolonial interests. Even within its own terms ofreference, however, such a mode of argumentation re-quires clarification, qualification, refinement, and per-haps even correction. It is inappropriate to infer thatpurported relationships that exist in the United Statesbetray Christianity’s more generic and innate complic-ity in the West’s struggle to maintain global hegemony.It is imperative to return again to Christianity’s com-plex historical emergence and splintering. Two criticalflaws merit particular mention.

First, many constituencies within evangelical Chris-tianity rightly object to the simplicity of recent ac-counts and their lack of representativeness of the widerfaith community. Within geography, Dittmer (2007a,2007b, 2008), Gerhardt (2008a, 2008b), and Sturm(2006, 2008) have all offered more nuanced insightsinto the popular geopolitical imaginaries and more var-ied political leanings of evangelical Christians in theUnited States, with specific reference to the differenteschatologies proffered by premillennial dispensation-alism and postmillenialism. Meanwhile, Yorgason andChen (2008) have added the geopolitical imaginar-ies of Mormonism to the story. The more complexrelationships between evangelicalism, Protestantism,the religious right, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, thepresidency of George W. Bush, and U.S. foreign pol-icy have also provided a focus for more careful de-bate in religious studies (Chernus 2008), internationalrelations (Bacevich and Prodromou 2004), Ameri-can studies (Newman 2007), and political science(Brown 2006).

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Second, serious theoretical and political weaknessesderive from enshrining the case of the United States asparadigmatic and drawing overly strong inferences. Un-derstanding of the contributions of Christianity to warand peace is being skewed as a result of an excessivelynarrow focus on a single case. It is necessary to explorewith a broader gaze the variety of ecumenical vistas thatare being secreted and mobilized as Christianity’s richdiversity of denominations and churches interlace withother secular societies in other parts of the world. Theremainder of this article strives to heighten awareness ofthe more varied stories that might be told if Christian-ity’s complex historical emergence and rich diversityof institutional formations are given wider recognition.Given its numerical dominance and global expansive-ness, the Roman Catholic Church offers a valuable al-ternative case through which to probe Christianity’smore messy social and political agendas.

In Search of the Principle of Hope : ACritical Geographical Enquiry into theEcumenical Agendas Promoted by theRoman Catholic Church

This article contends that the varieties of peace-building strategies Roman Catholicism promotes re-flect the myriad ways in which Catholic theologiansare seeking to “provincialize” the West so as to alter theterms of reference of ecumenical dialogue. FollowingChakrabarty (2000), the concept of provincialization isused here to refer to critical practices that usurp and de-center the sovereign supremacy enjoyed by Europe andthe West in the framing of world history and global pol-itics. It is possible to discern strategies that seek to his-toricize and relativize (1) the European Enlightenment,(2) Christocentric ecumenicism, and (3) globalizedneoliberal capitalism, respectively. The peace initia-tives offered by three of the most influential RomanCatholic theologians of the moment, Joseph Ratzinger(Pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church), HansKung (leading Northern Hemispheric critic of the Ro-man Curia and reformer within the Catholic Church),and Leonardo Boff (a leading figure within Latin Amer-ican liberation theology), capture exactly the differ-ent implications that flow from each of these forms ofprovincialization.

Joseph Ratzinger was born in Germany in 1927, HansKung in Switzerland in 1928, and Leonardo Boff in

Brazil in 1938. All three were ordained priests in theRoman Catholic Church and progressed to doctoratestudies: Ratzinger graduating from the University ofMunich in 1953 with a thesis on Saint Augustine’s doc-trine of the church; Kung from the Sorbonne in Parisin 1957 with a thesis on Christian unification and theconcept of justification in the Protestant theology ofKarl Barth; and Boff from the University of Munich in1970 with a thesis on the church and the liberation ofthe oppressed as a sign of the divine in the secular world.Throughout the 1960s all three were to secure renownas leading progressive and liberal thinkers within theCatholic Church, and each was to contribute to and tobe deeply influenced by the Second Vatican Council(1962–1965).

Their pathways were soon to part. Ratzinger tookup a series of academic chairs at the Universities ofBonn, Munster, Tubingen, and Regensburg, before serv-ing as Archbishop of Munich from 1977, Prefect to theCongregation for the Doctrine of Faith from 1981, andfinally Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 onward. Kung,meanwhile, served as Chair in Theology and Direc-tor of the Institute for Ecumenical Research at theUniversity of Tubingen until he retired in 1996, af-ter which he established and served as President ofthe Global Ethic Foundation in Tubingen. Boff re-turned to his native Brazil where he took up a seriesof chairs in theology, philosophy, and ethics and mostrecently served as Professor Emeritus of Ethics, Philoso-phy of Religion, and Ecology at the Rio de Janeiro StateUniversity.

At the heart of any critical geographical enquiryinto the extent, nature, and consequences of RomanCatholicism’s engagements with postcolonialism mustbe a concern with the locations in which different post-colonial strategies germinate and take shape and thecapacity of these strategies to then access and mold thegeopolitical agendas pursued by different nations. Tothis end, in this section I argue that the concepts ofmilieux of translation and formations of the secular areof value when subjecting Catholicism to postcolonialscrutiny. The idea of milieux of translation is deployedto help account for the ways in which Catholic theol-ogy produces different faith-based social and politicalpraxes as it becomes refracted through different social,cultural, economic, and political worlds. The notion offormations of the secular is introduced to help accountfor the variable manifestations and impacts of Catholicpeace strategies on public realms in different democraticpolities.

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Milieux of Translation: Locating CatholicProvincializations of the West

Catholic theology is capable of generating such dif-ferent social and political prescriptions in part be-cause theologians inhabit different geographical worlds,the prisms through which they refract universal tenetsand concretize what needs to be done on this earth.Ratzinger comes to ecumenical dialogue following along struggle with European secularism. Kung, mean-while, has approached ecumenical activity from aconciliatory, European, post-Reformation Catholic tra-dition that found its zeitgeist in the liberal, ecumeni-cal, and cosmopolitan atmosphere sown by the SecondVatican Council (1962–1965). Finally, Boff has craftedhis ecumenical vista out of the ashes of Latin Amer-ica’s own history of colonization and neocolonization byEuropean powers and later North American economicinterests.

Joseph Ratzinger’s ecumenical vista stems most fun-damentally from his long struggle with European sec-ularism. Ratzinger regards Europe as a critical bulwarkagainst U.S. global imperialism and a potential “thirdway” between the West and other civilizations. Inprinciple, then, he is a supporter of European integra-tion and the deepening and widening of the EuropeanUnion. Europe, however, is a continent in crisis. ForRatzinger, the roots of Europe’s crises can be tracedto the European age of reason itself and to the stillreverberating cultural legacy of the European Enlight-enment. The rise to prominence of radical or aggressivesecularism has led to a godless Europe and as a conse-quence to the collapse of natural law and triumph ofpostmodernism and relativism (Boeve 2007).

For Ratzinger, Christianity’s encounter with Greekculture in the fourth and fifth centuries was nothingshort of divine providence. The Hellenistic Enlight-enment allowed the fragments of Christian thoughtto be subjected to ruthless exegesis, critique, andreformulation. In turn, Christianity nourished Greeksociety by providing fundamental answers to questionsof public significance. The European Enlightenmentushered in a period of de-Hellenization and resulted ina severing of theology from philosophy. It succeededonly in producing forms of both reason and religionthat were inherently and unnecessarily self-limiting.Although claiming to be universal, this enlightenmentwas Eurocentric and culturally specific and neededto be historicized. A new rapprochement betweenfaith and reason was required. “Pathologies of reason”required a “hint” from the great religions if they were

to avoid becoming destructive, whereas “pathologies ofreligion” could be purified through rational debate andthe application of human reason (Ratzinger 2006).

Ratzinger’s principal contribution to ecumenical dia-logue has come from his assertion that Christianity andmore specifically Roman Catholicism will be most fit forpurposes for interfaith, intercivilizational, and intercul-tural dialogue when it bears the stamp of its Greek her-itage. Harnessing the fruits of the Greek enlightenment,Christianity could first engage in rational and reasoneddebate on the competing claims to truth that inherein different religions with a view to effecting some sortof a consensus. Second, it could provide a moral foun-dation through which European states might broker amore progressive set of relations with other regions ofthe world. Christianity could not hope to produce thekingdom of Heaven on earth and contained no pre-scription for a perfect society, but it could furnish theprepolitical moral and ethical precepts for a just world.

In 2000, in his capacity as Prefect of the Congrega-tion for the Doctrine of Faith, Ratzinger had attractedinternational hostility by publishing Dominus Iesus: Onthe Unicity and Salvic Universality of Jesus Christ andthe Church (Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith2000). This document affirmed the absolute claim ofCatholicism to be the one true religion and reassertedthe belief that salvation was only possible through dis-cipleship of Jesus Christ. It was condemned as arro-gant, supremacist, and a blow for ecumenical relations.Ratzinger’s response came in the form of Truth and Tol-erance: Christian Belief and World Religions (Ratzinger2003). The question of the relative merits of differentreligions could not be divorced from their competingclaims to truth. A product of the Hellenistic Enlight-enment, Christianity could defend the authority of itsclaims in a more rational and logical way than couldother religions (Salvatore 2006).

This argument was publicized in his infamous Re-gensburg Lecture (Ratzinger 2006) and in the furorthat followed Ratzinger was accused of implying thatIslam’s claims to truth were weaker because it devaluedhuman reason, was inherently irrational and drawn toviolence, and demanded only blind faith. The purposeof this lecture was to assert that theology properly be-longed in the university and that progress in ecumenicaldialogue between Christianity and Islam required thatboth revalorize reason and rigorous intellectual schol-arship. However, in a brief but provocative passage,Ratzinger meditated on a dialogue between the Byzan-tine Emperor Manuel II and an unnamed educated Per-sian reputed to have taken place near Ankara in 1391.

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Conditioned by his Greek education, the Emperor re-jects the Islamic concept that God’s logic transcendshuman logic and therefore that God is unknowable.Lamenting Islamic belief in the idea of a holy war—conversion by compulsion—the Emperor is quoted assaying, “Show me just what Mohammed brought thatwas new, and there you will find things only evil andinhuman, such as his command to spread by the swordthe faith he preached” (Ratzinger 2006, 3).

In a public debate with Jurgen Habermas in 2004,Ratzinger argued that Christianity had a criticalrole in rediscovering the power of conscience andproviding prepolitical moral foundations for the liberaldemocratic state (Habermas and Ratzinger 2006).Christianity had a duty to arrest the degeneration ofmorality wrought by the ascendancy of secular societyand to provide an ethical bedrock for contemporarysocieties, but its principal task was never to searchfor the kingdom of Heaven on earth. Original sinhad condemned “sinful” and “boastful” humans tocontinual lapses of error and humans could neverhope to invent a perfect societal form. Ratzinger hasin fact developed a forensic and extensive critique ofMarxism and socialism on the one hand, and Westerndemocracy, capitalism, and imperialism on the other(Ratzinger 2003). He has been at the forefront of delib-erations on the moral and ethical problems presentedby biotechnology, medicine, and science. Neverthelesshe has consistently stopped short of a significantcommitment to any particular social, political, oreconomic ideology other than an improved status quo.

In June 2009, he published his long-awaited socialencyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), whichwill define the remit for Roman Catholic social doc-trine for the foreseeable future (Benedict XVI 2009).This encyclical sought to root Christian social doc-trine in natural law rather than political ideology. Itaddresses directly the current economic recession andcrises in the global financial system and reflects on formsof economic life conducive to supporting human devel-opment in its widest and holistic sense. Although itis too rich to attempt to summarize here, the encycli-cal reveals the limits to which Ratzinger is prepared tomove beyond the specification of a better status quo.Although warning that the instrument of the marketcan produce negative consequences, the thrust of theencyclical holds that markets are neither intrinsicallygood nor bad but are shaped by the “cultural config-urations which define them and give them direction”(Benedict XVI 2009, 36). It is “man’s [sic] darkened rea-son” (36) that allows markets to degenerate and falter.

The injection of Christian values back into every levelof capitalist society holds the key to the correction ofmarkets so that they are directed toward the commongood.

Hans Kung came to prominence as a leading advo-cate of reform of the Roman Curia during the SecondVatican Council. A product of post-Reformation lib-eral Catholicism, and greatly influenced by the liberal,ecumenical, and cosmopolitan zeitgeist sown by the“freedom generation” of the 1960s, Kung’s reputationhas been built on his fierce criticism of self-admirationwithin the Roman Catholic Church, in particular inrelation to its “medieval facade.” In The Church, Kung(1967) argued that the New Testament provides nodoctrine of the Church’s essence that preceded its ini-tial form. The essence of the Church, therefore, alwaysexpresses itself in historical form. Christianity was freeto invent for itself a future based on (1) its origins andoriented to the present rather than its medieval past;(2) partnership and community and not patriarchaland hierarchical expressions of power; (3) ecumenicismand inclusivity and not fundamentalism and exclusiv-ity, and (4) multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism andnot Eurocentric imperialism.

From this starting point, Kung has gone further thanany other Christian leader in laying the foundations forecumenical dialogue. To date, he has participated inthree phases of such dialogue. His early focus was onChristian reunification and the development of “theo-logical bases for a rapprochement between the Churchof Rome and Canterbury” (Kung 1964, xxxiii; 1967).This was followed with a series of works examining thestatus of contemporary Christianity (Kung 1976), theexistence of God (Kung 1980), and Christianity andDarwinism (Kung 2007), all of which spoke directlyto a secular audience. Since 1991, however, his pri-mary focus has been on the building of bridges betweenChristianity and other world religions (Kung 1991,1997, 2002; Kung and Schmidt 1998). He has soughtto provincialize Christian ecumenism with a view toentering genuinely democratic ecumenical dialogue.

Kung’s ongoing efforts to foster “a de-escalationof the clashing together of civilizations” is structuredaround four maxims:

� There will be no peace among the nations withoutpeace among the religions.

� There will be no peace among the religions withoutdialogue between the religions.

� There will be no dialogue between the religions with-out investigation of the foundations of the religions.

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� There will be no survival of our globe in peace andjustice without a new paradigm of international re-lations based on global ethical standards.

For Kung, the pivotal idea of the global ethic must beapproached with modesty and humility and should notbe taken to refer to “a new global ideology, a new singleworld culture, or even an attempt at a uniform unitaryreligion” (Kung 1997, 64). It is not intended to “re-place the Torah, the Sermon on the Mount, the Qur’an,the Bhagavadgita, the Discourses of the Buddha, or theAnalects of Confucius” (Kung 1997, 64). Instead it is in-spired by the idea that for all their differences, religionsshare a number of “fundamental precepts” and reveal a“fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocablestandards, and personal attitudes” (Kung 1991, 8).

From this promising start, arguably Kung fails to cap-ture the full potential of his approach. Kung’s projectremains the work of a Western theologian and scholar,thinking, writing, and acting for a Western audience. Areading across the fundamental ethical precepts sharedby all religions inevitably gives rise to a series of abstractschemas ultimately too removed from the world to beof practical utility. For example, the Declaration of theParliament of the World’s Religions pioneered by Kungreached consensus on the importance of a “GoldenRule,” “Do unto others what you would have done untoyourself,” and four common truths: “a commitment to aculture of non-violence and respect for life; . . . a cultureof solidarity and a just economic order; . . . a culture oftolerance and a life of truthfulness; . . . equal rights andpartnership between men and women” (Kung 1998,18). Representatives from every religion felt able tosign the Declaration only because it steered clear of anyconcrete proposals.

Kung’s own efforts to ground the global ethichave been largely pragmatic and conservative. LikeRatzinger, he has failed to move beyond the specifica-tion of prepolitical moral foundations for a just societyand economy, although in his search for such founda-tions he has cast his net far wider among a pluralityof cultures and religions. Following a somewhat mean-dering engagement with the politics and economics ofKissinger, Roosevelt, Wilson, Bismarck, Morgenthau,Friedman, Keynes, and Polayni, Kung’s program forsocial change is based on improvements within theexisting system (Kung 1997). A basic and fundamen-tal reorientation toward ethical behavior, without anaccompanying transformation of the basic structures ofworld order or global capitalism, will alone bring theWest into an improved relation with non-Western so-

cieties. Peace between nations requires a new responsi-ble politics, avoiding both “Realpolitik without morals”and a “moralizing Idealpolitik.” Accompanying a re-sponsible politics would be a responsible economics,which tracks a “Third Way” between “welfarism whichis not affordable” and “neoliberalism which lacks socialjustice.”

Leonardo Boff, alongside other important theolo-gians such as Gustavo Gutierrez, Jose Miguez Bonino,Enrique Dussel, Segunda Galiliea, Ronaldo Munoz, andJuan Luis Segundo, has been at the forefront of thedevelopment of Southern Hemispheric liberation the-ology. Instituted following the second Latin AmericanBishops Conference in 1968, and germinating first inBrazil and Peru in the early 1970s, liberation theol-ogy has grown to become something of an interdenom-inational global social movement, generating radicaltheological traditions in other parts of Latin Amer-ica, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Taiwan, and inparts of Africa and influencing Black Christian socialmovements in the southern states of the United States.Although there is a sense today that the failure of theNicaraguan and Salvadorian revolutions and more gen-erally the failure of Marxism and the ascendancy of cap-italism have rendered liberation theology obsolete, thistradition nevertheless continues to bristle with debateas to how to effect meaningful social change.

Boff has published more than one hundred bookslaying out the foundations for liberation theology andarticulating its central concerns (most pertinent forthis article are Boff 1978, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1997,2005b, 2006, 2008). For Boff, the Christianity thatcame to Latin America was already inculturated by theEuropean Greco-Roman tradition and took the formof a Western, hierarchical, clergy-dominated institu-tion. This tradition was further mediated by the processof transplantation itself, with Christian missions, set-tlements, and evangelizing bound up with the Iberiancolonial project, military conquest, violence and geno-cide, and economic exploitation. Stripped of the cloth-ing of its origins and the wounds it inflicted as part of itspassage, however, the Christian message still held thekey to redemption. The challenge for liberation theol-ogy was to decolonize Christianity and to effect a newsynthesis between the Bible and the social and politicalrealities of present-day Latin America.

Liberation theology conceives of structures of polityand economy that serve to produce and reproduceglobal inequality, oppress the poor and the marginal-ized, and threaten the earth’s resources and natural en-vironments, as nothing less than the presence of evil

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in the world. Capitalism in its “fundamentalist” neolib-eral form, and democracy in its “compromised” Westernform, are the work of the devil and inherently sinful.Jesus Christ was the world’s foremost revolutionary. IfChristianity was to take the message of Christ seri-ously it had no option other than to challenge thesestructures and work for fundamental social and polit-ical transformation. The prognosis then was to rescueChristianity from the European colonial project and torecast the Christian message by bringing it into con-frontation with the categories of politico-social liber-ation and praxes and in particular with Marxism andpolitical ecology. Importantly, though, all social the-ory was useful only in so far as it helped Christianitybetter understand and fulfill its mission. In liberationtheology, Marxism is always subordinate to and parasit-ical on Christianity and there is no innate or intrinsicdevotion to Marx.

According to Boff, global peace and security can-not be achieved within the contemporary world order,structured as it is to serve Western capitalism and theglobalization of the neoliberal agenda. Western for-eign policy toward Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraqshares clear parallels with Iberian colonization of LatinAmerica. Addressing unequal power asymmetries be-tween colonizer and colonized is the only secure wayto avoid a clash of civilizations. In an interview in Co-munita Italiana in November 2001 in the immediateaftermath of the 11 September attacks on the WorldTrade Center, Boff controversially asserted:

For me, the terrorist attack of September 11 represents theshift towards a new humanitarian and world model. Thetargeted buildings send a message: a new world civilizationcouldn’t be built with the kind of dominating economy(symbolized by the World Trade Center), with the kindof death machine set up (the Pentagon), and with thekind of arrogant politics and producer of many exclusions(White House spared, because the plane fell before). Forme the system and culture of capital began to collapse.They are too destructive. (Boff 2001, 15)

Advocating a provincialization of EnlightenmentEurope and a progressive redeployment of the globalmarket for the common good, Ratzinger’s ecumenicalagenda remains essentially conservative and defensiveof Western economic and political structures and there-fore stands as a limited act of contrition. Kung’s point ofdeparture is a confident West, virtuous in its basic eco-nomic and political structures but willing to look out tothe world with humility, to confess and face up to pastand present arrogance and misdeeds, to open up to gen-

uine cross-cultural dialogue and ecumenical solidarity,and to be enriched by other cultures and value systems.Arguably his approach offers more than he eventuallyrealizes. Boff demands that the West face up to the roleof capitalist economic interests and Western theoriesof development in the production of global inequality,friction, tension, and war and advocates a radical andalternative politics and economy. Although it is crudeto sort all three into a continuum, it would seem ap-propriate to conclude that Boff’s postcolonial agenda isthe most radical, Ratzinger’s is the most conservative,and Kung’s sits uneasily between conservativism andliberalism.

Formations of the Secular: Securing Access to andImpact on Public Realms and Democratic Polities

To have any material significance, approaches topeace building need to concretize into praxes that accessand impact public realms in different societies. Criticalgeographical enquiry needs to pay attention to the sit-uated mobilization of peace strategies as well as thesituated production of the colonial and postcolonialvisions that undergird these strategies. It is here thatgeographies of secularism and geographies of the work-ings of democratic systems emerge as key. An importantdebate between Casanova (1994) and Asad (2003)helps frame reflection on the impact of the RomanCatholic Church in secular politics.

According to Casanova (1994), the much vauntedreentry of religion into the public realm does not repre-sent a threat to secularism but instead reveals its matu-ration. Secularism resulted in a differentiation of fieldsof human endeavor with an effective separation of reli-gion from politics, economy, science, and so on; the rel-egation of religion to the private and personal spheres;and the declining significance of religious beliefs, prac-tices, and institutions. This removal of religion fromthe public sphere was to the detriment of agonic debateand resulted in an inferior species of secularism. ForCasanova, religions inject ethical values into secularsocieties, which they themselves rarely prioritize, suchas solidarity, peace, and human dignity. The dawningof the postsecular age announces a new moment whenreligion, now disciplined and contained by the rules ofdemocratic debate, reenters public life productively, asone voice among many, making a reasoned case, likeall other interest groups, for particular public policychoices.

Asad (2003), in contrast, refused to regard the re-assertion of religion in the public sphere as, at least

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in any simple way, an enrichment, advancement, andreinvigoration of the secular project, offering instead ananthropology of secularism that reveals its differentialcapacities to absorb different religions and denomina-tions into the public realm. The categories secular andreligion were invented at a pivotal moment in Europe’shistory. Secularism itself then emerged as a historicallydistinctive and sociopolitical process that sought to rollback religious and traditional authority only to replace itwith new sources of power, politics, ethics, and modes ofgovernance. Asad advanced the concept of “formationsof the secular” to historicize secularism (see also With-ers 2007 “placing” of the European Enlightenment), toreveal the significance of its European heritage, and tocapture the manner in which its prevailing political,economic, social, and cultural institutions act to sanc-tion only particular and preferred incursions of religioninto public life.

Echoing Asad’s concerns, Swyngedouw (2008) hasrecently sought to draw the attention of geographersto the works of Jacques Ranciere, Slavoj Zizek, andChantal Mouffe, concerning the status of our “postpo-litical” moment. A postpolitical democratic formationarises when the manufacturing of consent comes to takeprecedence over genuine agonic debate, concepts ofdemocratic participation become diluted to the pointof ineptitude, entry to the public sphere is effectivelyforeclosed, and the public realm comes to serve as asource of propaganda for capital’s trajectories. Whereasthe postsecular thesis posits a widening of the publicsphere, concomitant with the elevated role played byreligious leaders in public debate, the postpolitical the-sis heightens awareness of the potentially illusionarycharacter of such widening and draws attention to theheavily policed public sphere in which religions are cur-rently struggling to articulate particular agendas.

Ratzinger, Kung, and Boff have accessed and im-pacted the public realm in different ways. First andforemost these differences reflect their differential ac-cess to authority within the Catholic Church itself. TheRoman Curia (apparatus of governance) and RomanMagisterium (teaching office) provide a centralized, hi-erarchical, and absolute system of governance for theentire Church, vetting ecumenical agendas emergingfrom any sectional interest or particular national, re-gional, or local church to ensure alignment with officialRoman doctrine. There is no doubt that by holding thePetrine office, Ratzinger has been able to employ theresources of the Vatican to ensure a high profile forhis vision of how to secure global peace and security.His approach to ecumenicism has become de facto the

official position of the Roman Catholic Church. Evenbefore his ascension to the papacy, in his prior role asPrefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,Ratzinger was to censor, silence, and impose sanctionson both Kung and Boff. Although ostracization withinthe Church has undoubtedly opened up new audiencesfor Kung and Boff by default, their marginalization hasinhibited their influence.

At the root of Kung’s ecumenical agenda is a be-lief that freedom within the Church is a prerequi-site for the pursuit of freedom from social oppression.Only by looking inward can Catholicism look out-ward with confidence. It needs first to transcend itsself-congratulatory pretension toward superiority andabsolutist primacy before it can become an effectivepartner in dialogue. On this basis he has challenged theCatholic Church to rethink its approach to interfaithmarriage, the role of women in the church, contracep-tion, clerical celibacy, church governance, papal infal-libility, and Marian piety. Throughout, however, he haschosen to remain a Catholic:

Despite my years of immense difficulty with Rome I re-mained true to the conviction that the Petrine office,oriented on the constitution of the New Testament, andthe great Catholic tradition of the first millennium, witha moral and pastoral rather than formal and juristic au-thority, can still be an opportunity for Christianity as awhole. In this respect I am certainly perhaps the most rad-ical Catholic critic of medieval juristic primacy of the ruleby the pope, but paradoxically at the same time possiblyone of the most effective Catholic advocates for a pastoralprimacy in the service of Christian ecumencism. (Kung2008, 428)

Following a protracted conflict with Rome over thespeed with which the Roman Curia and Roman Magis-terium were “modernizing,” Kung’s interrogation of thedoctrine of papal infallibility in 1970 finally provokedVatican reprisal, leading eventually in 1980 to the with-drawal of his right to instruct in the Catholic faith. Kungwas charged with no longer believing in the central doc-trines of the Catholic faith and therefore was assumedto be unable and unfit to communicate these doctrineseffectively. This marginalization was profoundly debili-tating for Kung and arguably he has yet to recover fromit on a personal and political level. As a consequence,Kung’s contribution has been channeled outside of theChurch in his role as a public intellectual and presidentof an influential research institute.

In 1996 Count K. K. von der Groeben provided anendowment to establish the Global Ethic Foundation

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in Tubingen, Germany, and installed Kung as presi-dent. The foundation has since expanded offices intoHungary, Colombia, Ireland, Switzerland, and France.In search of a global ethic, the Foundation has been ac-tive on three particular fronts. First, Kung has sought todeepen public understanding of world religions throughthe production of a seven-part television series, publi-cation of major manuscripts on each of the main reli-gions, and the organization of an exhibition of worldreligions that has toured the major cities of the world.Second, Kung has engaged world leaders in his projectby hosting an annual invited lecture, given to date byTony Blair, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan, Horst Kohler,Shirin Ebadi, Jacques Rogge, Helmut Schmidt, andDesmond Tutu. Finally, Kung has played a central rolein drafting two significant cross-faith declarations: theDeclaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions inChicago in 1993 and the Universal Declaration of HumanResponsibilities in 1997 (Kung 1998).

Following his elevation to the papacy, Ratzingermet Kung at Castel Gandolfo in Lazio in September2005. There was to be no reconciliation (Kung 2008).Ratzinger himself has praised the global ethic projectas well spirited but has argued that it can only work ata level of abstraction that means little to those expe-riencing actual conflict, war, and genocide (Habermasand Ratzinger 2006). Kung, meanwhile, is vehementthat any conversation with Islam or Judaism predicatedon Hellenistic reasoning holds out little promise for agenuine ecumenical dialogue:

Only one enlightenment is really acceptable to him, theclassical Greek enlightenment. He regards the clothing inGreek dress of a message which comes from the semiticsphere as a divine dispensation of such a kind that noother dress is either necessary or legitimate. The secularenlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies is unacceptable to him; Hellenism is the maxim ofall that is authentically Christian. . . . Anyone who wantsto carry on a conversation with Jews or Muslims on thebases of the traditional Hellenistic doctrine of Trinity andincarnation will begin a pseudo dialogue that will verysoon come to an end. (Kung 2008, 133, 305)

Four years into Ratzinger’s papacy, Kung remained pes-simistic about his vision for the Catholic Church andthe contributions it might make to world peace. In Jan-uary 2009 in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche, andbased on a line of reasoning whose credibility time alonewill determine, Kung pondered over the prospects forthe Catholic Church were Barack Obama to becomePope:

In the Catholic Church the mood is oppressive, the pile-upof reforms paralysing. Ratzinger has confirmed all the fearswhich arose when he was elected pope. The pope favourspeople who still reject the freedom of religion affirmed byVatican II, dialogue with other churches, reconciliationwith Judaism, a high esteem for Islam and the other worldreligions and the reform of the liturgy. Whereas PresidentObama, with the support of the whole world, is lookingforwards and is open to people and to the future, this Popeis orientating himself above all backwards, inspired by theideal of the medieval church, sceptical about the Reforma-tion, ambiguous about modern rights of freedom. WhereasPresident Obama is concerned for new cooperation withpartners and allies Pope Benedict XVI is trapped in think-ing in terms of friend and foe. He snubs fellow Christiansin the Protestant churches by refusing to recognize thesecommunities as churches. The dialogue with Muslims hasnot got beyond a lip confession of “dialogue.” Relationswith Judaism must be said to have been deeply damaged.(Kung 2009, 4)

In his role as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doc-trine of Faith, Ratzinger (1984) published an Instructionon Liberation Theology warning Roman Catholics aboutthe “errors” in liberation theology. Shaped by Catholicwarring with Marxist ideology, in particular its privi-leging of materialism over spiritualism in the unfold-ing of history, the central importance of the Solidaritymovement in Poland to the papacy of his pre-decessor John Paul II, and his own experi-ences of Soviet Communism in East Germany,Ratzinger ascribed to liberation theology the status ofheresy:

The very radicality of Liberation Theology means that itsseriousness is often underestimated. Since it cannot fit intoany of the accepted categories of heresy its fundamentalconcerns cannot be detected by the existing range of stan-dard questions. The Sermon on the Mount is indeed Godtaking sides with the poor. But to interpret the “poor” inthe sense of the Marxist dialectic of history and “takingsides” with them in the sense of class struggle is a wantonattempt to portray as identical things which are contrary.(Ratzinger 1984, 4)

He was to use this Instruction to censor a number ofLatin American bishops and theologians. Leonardo Boffwas censored for nine months in 1985 following pub-lication of his Marxist-inspired Church, Charism, andPower and when the Roman Magisterium attemptedto do so again in 1992 to prevent his participation inthe Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, he opted to leavethe priesthood. Ostracized by Rome, Boff’s politicaltheology found an audience among grassroots activists

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in marginal communities in Brazil and his workin defense of the poor has earned internationalrecognition.

Synchronizing global political and economic poli-tics with local and community activism, for Boff, “Co-munidades de Base” or “Base Christian Communities”have offered a fruitful way forward for Christian socialpraxes. There are more than one hundred thousand ofthese grassroots organizations in Brazil alone. The Co-munidades de Base have served not only as sites forthe production of new forms of liturgy, worship, prayer,and lay involvement in ministry but also as breedinggrounds for community leaders, activists, and agitators;trade union members and organizers; and representa-tives of socialist political parties. From within thesesites a contextual theology capable of challenging cap-italist exploitation and the hegemony of transnationalcapital and restoring human dignity has been produced,circulated, and popularized.

For Boff the Roman Catholic Church will not serveas a partner for peace in any meaningful sense for aslong as Ratzinger remains Pope:

If the attitude of confrontation with modernity and post-modernity prevails, I foresee disastrous consequences forthe future of the Church. Traditionalist as he is, BenedictXVI must know that this strategy profoundly wears downthe Church. In the past, he deprived the liberation move-ments of the oppressed the cooperation of Christians whocould have offered Christian values to the emerging socialrelations, leaving them instead alienated and immature.A Church that returns to models of the past becomes im-mobile, like a fossil. Ratzinger says that only the CatholicChurch is the Church of Christ and that the others are notChurches, but only have ecclesial elements. It is also to sayto other religions that they have valid elements, but thattheir followers run a grave risk of perdition because theyare outside the Catholic Church, the only true religion.This is not to dialogue but to insult. Cordiality is usedto facilitate conversion. That is deceitful and undignified.(Boff 2005a, 1)

The profile, resources, and politics of the Petrine Of-fice have ensured that Raztinger’s approach to peacebuilding has reached a global audience and infiltratedpublic debate in many societies with some effect. Al-though no longer the church of the establishment inmany European states where it formerly dominated, theCatholic Church exerts both formal and informal in-fluence, especially in polities where there remains asignificant Catholic electoral block. Nevertheless, asevidenced in the extraordinary breadth of public com-mentary that surrounded his overseas visits to Germany

in 2006; Brazil in 2007; France, the United States,and Australia in 2008; and Cameroon, Angola, andthe Middle East in 2009, Ratzinger has been unable toaccess the secular stage without exciting controversyand resistance. This is in spite of the fact that theChurch has used its tightly regulated and centralizedcommand and control structure to silence dissentingvoices and to promote socially conservative politicalagendas.

Defense of the Church’s “citizenship” rights has beena major theme of Ratzinger’s papacy. The Roman Curiarepeatedly laments that Ratzinger has been the victimof negative media coverage and has been unduly andunfairly caricatured and ridiculed. For Ratzinger mediahostility is evidence of the persistence of aggressive sec-ularism and the difficulties some secular constituencieshave with granting Christianity the right to participatein democratic debate. It is not surprising then that atthe heart of Caritas in veritate is a plea for a fairer hearingfor Christianity:

The Christian religion and other religions can offer theircontribution to development only if God has a place inthe public realm, specifically in regard to its cultural, so-cial, economic, and particularly its political dimensions.The Church’s social doctrine came into being in order toclaim “citizenship status” for the Christian religion. Deny-ing the right to profess one’s religion in public and theright to bring the truths of faith to bear on public life hasnegative consequences for true development. The exclu-sion of religion from the public square—hinders an en-counter between persons and their collaboration for theprogress of humanity. Public life is sapped of its motiva-tion and politics takes on a domineering and aggressivecharacter. (Benedict XVI 2009, 30)

Catholicism’s struggles to be taken seriously in thepublic square in spite of its ruthless “management” ofdissenting liberal and socialist wings raises importantquestions about the wider contributions of Christian-ity to democratic formations beyond the United States.Two interpretations present themselves. First, it mightbe that secularism has become so entrenched even inthose Western democracies that aspire to a postpoliticalforeclosure of agonic debate in favor of deepening andextending neoliberal ideologies that political systemsdo not see value in courting Catholicism even when itmight be politically useful to their cause. The marginal-ization and silencing of the Catholic Church by ag-gressive secularism raises the possibility that beyondthe United States, conservative Christianity might beof limited interest to capitalist elites with vested in-terests in globalizing neoliberalism and consolidating

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Western power. In our postpolitical moment, ratio-nalities that originate in the secular field might becapable of manufacturing consent alone, without theneed for religion to serve as an additional source ofsupport.

An alternative reading posits that secularism isworking effectively to facilitate an appropriate andhealthy incorporation of Catholicism back into thepublic sphere. Asad (2003) is correct to foregroundthe varying access to the public realm different reli-gions and branches of religion actually secure in dif-ferent places and at different times. In contexts whenRoman Catholicism struggles to justify and promoteeven its more conservative social and political agendas,however, Casanova’s (1994) assertion that religion hasthe potential to make valuable contributions to the en-hancement of agonic debate in the public democraticsphere becomes more convincing. At its best, secular-ism permits Roman Catholicism only an equal opportu-nity to state its case. Critical geographical enquiry intoChristianity’s contributions to war and peace needs tomap both the unequal and privileged access to secularpolitics some Christian churches enjoy in some soci-eties and the progressive and regressive outcomes thatderive from the struggles other Christian churches en-counter when trying to secure access to the public realmin other secular democracies.

Conclusion

As growing intolerance between religions has cometo be viewed as a significant threat to world peace andsecurity, Christianity has been called on to exercise itsinfluence responsibly and to promote greater tolerance,understanding, and mutual respect. The embroilmentof certain branches of evangelical Christianity in therise of a new phase of U.S. imperialism has been inter-preted as confirmation that Christianity is structurallyimbricated in the Western project and its struggle tomaintain global hegemony and as such is incapable ofbrokering peace between Western and non-Westernsocieties. This article has challenged the paradigmaticstatus ascribed to this case study and has called for aheightened awareness of Christianity’s complex histor-ical emergence and conflictual brew of churches andfaith communities.

With specific reference to Christianity’s single largestdenomination, the Roman Catholic Church, this ar-ticle advances the more careful claim that although

Christianity can indeed perform as a mystifying ap-paratus, serving the interests of colonial and imperialprojects, it can also work as a galvanizing force for pro-gressive social, cultural, economic, and political agen-das. On this basis it has placed Roman Catholicismunder postcolonial scrutiny and set out an agenda fora critical geographical enquiry into Catholicism’s rolein war and peace. The concepts of milieux of transla-tion and formations of the secular have been used todenote the significance of both the situated productionof Christianity’s colonial and postcolonial visions andthe situated capacities of these visions to be brought tothe public square and to impact meaningfully on demo-cratic polities. Figure 1 provides a summary of the mostimportant conclusions.

Concerned with the future of critical human geogra-phy and the search for a foundational ethics for a mean-ingful politics, some geographers have offered Chris-tianity itself as a credible source of nourishment andencouragement. Pacione (1999, 118), for example, as-serted that Christianity is capable of providing a “moralframework for a more relevant human geography,” andCloke (2002, 587) offered Christianity as a resource for“living ethically and acting politically in human geog-raphy.” This article demonstrates that there is indeedconsiderable merit in reconsidering (institutional) ge-ography’s relationship with Christianity and affirms thepotential value of Christian geographies. But it wouldseem unfortunate if the discipline of geography, itselfin the throes of reflection on its colonial origins, wereto allow its moral and ethical compass to be uncriti-cally defined by a Christianity that is arguably only nowawakening to its historical emergence in and throughempire.

Future dialogue between Christianity and geogra-phy might usefully begin with an exchange of ideason how best to progress Chakrabarty’s (2000) widerproject of historicizing, relativizing, and provincializ-ing Europe and the West. Critical human geography,and in particular postcolonial geography, must simulta-neously instruct as well as be instructed by Christian-ity. Christianity can furnish geography with a range ofpossible strategies for provincializing the West and in-sights into the challenges of pursuing these strategiesmaterially in the realpolitik of contemporary interna-tional relations. Geography, meanwhile, offers Chris-tianity a heightened self-understanding of the role oflocation, space, and place, in the framing, enactment,and success of different postcolonial visions. Only whenit is put in its proper place will it be possible to deliberate

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Figure 1. The situated production of Christianity’s colonial and postcolonial agendas.

on the times and spaces in which it may be productiveto harness Christianity in the service of critical geo-graphical enquiry.

Finally, although Christianity has provided the focusfor this article, it is clear that other religions, in par-ticular Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism, require similarcritical scrutiny. It is here, however, that more com-plex theoretical challenges might present themselves.Given the relationship both have with the West, itcould be argued that the dialogue (institutional) ge-ography is capable of having with Christianity is notopen to easy replication. Of course, it is ethnocentricto assume that the majority of Anglo-American geog-raphers are Western or Christian, even in the loos-

est senses of these signifiers, but it remains pertinentto ask with what authority and on what bases Anglo-American critical human geography might feel enti-tled to bring Islam, Judaism, Confucianism, Daoism,Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on to account. If criticalgeographical enquiry is to advance interfaith, intercul-tural, and intercivilizational dialogue, it will need tothink seriously about the colonizing tendencies of post-colonial geography itself. It is imperative that Anglo-American geographers are afforded the right to speakcritically about other religions but the terms of refer-ence of such critical enquiry and the analytical frame-works that might be best suited to the task require priorreflection.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Audrey Kobayashi,Rob Kitchin, Mary Gilmartin, Eoin O’Mahony, and thethree anonymous referees for helpful comments on anearlier draft of this article.

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